


Still drowning

by pearcoffee



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hannibal is on a happy cannibal spree, Identity Issues, Introspection, M/M, Pansexual, Possessive!Hannibal, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale, Psychological Drama, Slow Burn, Will has to figure out what he wants, this may not be good for anyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:23:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4861148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearcoffee/pseuds/pearcoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will thought he could forever still the perfect moment, an embrace at the edge of an eroded cliff. It was his last try at being the Good that his feelings for Hannibal denied him to be.</p><p>When Hannibal drags him out of slumbering waters, he has to accept that "can't live without him" as become more powerful than anything else.<br/>But those feelings don't erase his need of righteousness. </p><p>How can the lamb love the devil?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bitten Bait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short writing session going with a drawing I did after the finale. I can't help but think that Will's nature can't just have a easy time being with Hannibal, even if that's what he truly wants, because of the opposition in nature of Will and Hannibal. Will is a deeply righteous person, just like we saw that he'd sooner die than let Hannibal be free, but still couldn't deal with being apart from him. Still if he survived the finale, I think he'd accept that killing Hannibal isn't a possibility anymore, just like locking him up wouldn't be. So enjoy Will's dismay.

  


In a spiralling moment of darkness, everything was gone. Everything had been silenced by the heaviness of dark water and its icy touch. Slowly, he was going numb. Fingers were tingling against the euthanasia setting in. Like the world was gone. Nothing but the pressure of waves in the astounding quietness.

  


Forgotten in the ocean. Contented. 

  


Except that it was never this easy. Piercing through loud silence a solid arm hooked him, riling his body above the surface. Shattering the peace of abandon. Suddenly he was greeted by the glacial violence of the wind against his skin. The water had been cold in a pleasant kind of forgetful way. Like the gentle embrace of death. The air that violated his lungs was an icy stab of awareness. He coughed violently, purging insidious water. Life fought the loving embrace of surrender. A particularly intense wave had him slipping from the arms that preserved him in oxygen filled space. His head dipped underwater. A fist seized his shirt to yank him once more in breathable territories, a few button giving way under the strain.

A labored fight brought them closer to shallow waters. Will’s feet discovered a foundation, supported still by the unrelenting grip of Hannibal. He extended an arm, anchoring himself again the large shoulders of the man. Their pose a mirror of the embrace that had send them falling into deep waters. The contorted shirt dangled off his shoulders, white skin laid bare, contrasting against the black of chaotic waves in the light of the moon. 

  


Like a tableau of Andromeda, trapped and at the mercy of a sea monster. 

  


  
Except there was no rescue when you wed the devil.  
  
Maybe Persephone was a more apt comparison.

  


Trough their wade in the water, absently, Will thought of a previous time when Hannibal had made to help him and in the same movement effectively trapped his limbs by opening his shirt. How many times did Hannibal embraced him with an arm and gutted him with the other? How many times did he tried to return in kind?  
His forehead went to rest against Hannibal chest.  


Slowly and inexorably, the devil was riling him out of dark forgetfulness and oblivion. Water lapped at his waist. He slipped on rock smoothed by erosion. Hard fingers bit the flesh of his back, keeping him upright and halting their advance. Will's respiration came in harsh breaths. The fingers of his arm around Hannibal neck gripped his shoulder tightly, like he still risked slipping on unsteady ground. He felt a cheek pressed against his damp curls. Just like it had a few second before they pummeled to their certain death. That moment he’d wanted to entrap in time, to make it last forever. Because he knew there was no coming back to exposing himself so thoroughly to Hannibal and himself. He had admitted who he was, shown what he hid. Like if before he’d admitted it, he could still deny it existing. 

  


But death had evaded the bait Will had laid for it. 

  


Hannibal had hanged his own bait, and Will had bitten, thinking he could drown the fisherman with him in the sea. Yet here he was. Dragged ashore and out of exits. 

He’s found it in him to plunge, to be as good as he could ever be while behind as tainted by Hannibal as he was. He knew he no longer had the desire of determination to deny what they were to one another.  
  
Somehow, _can’t live without him_ had become truer than the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is. Hope you liked it!  
> Sadly, I don't have a beta reader and English isn't my first language. If you'd like to be my beta, please let me know, I'd love it! It was a quite short and I'm not sure if I'll continue this. It will depend on the response, so please let me know if you would like this to be a series with a complete development and some thriller or if this sufficed you.  
> I believe all Hannibal fans have a deeply distorted pleasure at seeing unstable and torn. I know I do.  
> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> EDIT (2 oct 2015): I may have initially wrote this while a bit tipsy. Or a lot. Or plainly drunk. Upon re-reading, I found many a thing that could be improved or was plain awful repetition.


	2. Shambling rocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again. So I've got a few ideas on what to do with this. Hope you like it. I'm also sorry for the late update, exams and figuring if this was worth continuing got in the way. Once again, this is not beta proofed. If you'd like the job, let me know!  
> Otherwise, please enjoy!

  


The wind howled, lashing with careening waves. Will couldn’t sense his damp skin covering in goosebumps under the relentless bite of the draught. He first thought the ocean to be cold, but it was even worst out of it. Impending hypothermia was a far away though for Will's dulled consciousness. His mind was stuck on the edge of that cliff he slipped them from. It was numb in confused at being alive. At what it implied. 

  


-

  


Hannibal was trying to reel him even further into the lacerating air. He kept Will cradled in his chest, well aware of his catatonic state. Medical training was looming in his mind. They were not in a life threatening situation, but it could easily degrade to it if he let it. The soaked clothing had to be ridden of. They couldn’t go back up to retrieve the police car. The risk of a tracking device embedded in the structure was too great to take. Dolarhyde vehicle had to be stationed near. He could spare a moment to get dry attire for them both and his medical kit. Like all head wound, that gash in Will’s face was bleeding steadily and the fact that it was in direct contact of his mouth bacterial population elevated the chances of infections dramatically. He wondered if Will’s tongue had been slashed at the same time. 

  


He finally got them out of the water. Adrenaline was alimenting muscles, shutting down pain receptors and oozing oxygen to his brain. Fatigue would plague is body, but not before he had the time to accomplish the task at hand. At least, Will was walking. Albeit it was more like stumbling backward, head still pressed on Hannibal’s collarbone. His face freshly washed by the seawater gushing a messy line of carmine blood from the knife wound. The urge to lick it suddenly seized him. He wanted to taste Will’s decision to stop his would be killer. Yet again. He wanted to suck on it and absorb part of Will’s being. Preserve it inside of him and have it merge with his own. He almost allowed himself the pleasure. However, he was used to the rush of adrenaline and it didn’t prove enough to shut down his rational thinking. Saliva in the gash would only contribute to an infection, and that could be quite bothersome. 

  


The beach wasn’t one; it was unsteady and sharp and slippery rocks as Hannibal found his footing out of the water. Will had begun to shiver violently, reminding him that time was starting to press them. His eyes were dull and he felt like a rag doll in Hannibal’s arms, hardly standing up by himself. He hadn’t expected such a reaction. 

  


Anguish didn’t grip him. It rarely did.  
He couldn’t be deterred from the complacency of Will’s surrender. The man was pliant in his arms. In this moment, Hannibal enjoyed the press of their body. He had the man’s life and future and his grasp and he wasn’t letting it go. 

  


The stones where jolting, transforming each weight shift into a gamble. Dragging Will across it was a receipt for disaster, and Hannibal wasn’t in the habit of cooking in bad taste.

  


-

  


Will couldn’t think, or maybe he refused to.  
Instead, he was enthralled by the slow path of dripping water against Hannibal collarbone. He quenched in the warmth emanating from the sturdy body enveloping him. His skin pressed against soaked wet fabric. It was strange how close he had become to Hannibal and yet how little they had actually touched. Even in private, their contacts had mostly been the hovering of a touch, the whisper of warm against skin and the entering of personal space that had replaced actual physical contact. They seemed to have an unmentioned distance that was only to be crossed as socials mask dropped. Once every so often, when they still sat in Hannibal office, a warm hand would press amicably on his shoulder. Europe was –had been—something else. Something different he couldn’t think about right now because the possibility of what could have been killed a little piece of him each time.  
At this moment, he was molded against Hannibal, an arm clinching him mindlessly closer.  
He wondered if willingness to accept Lecter’s embrace had shifted that polite distance. Had that bloodied embrace been an admission in itself?

  


A heated hand steered his head to look into Hannibal’s eyes. It was so dark. Yet the moon gave the impression of glowing skin. 

  


Could anything had been done differently? There hadn’t been any real plan to start-of. Will knew that he couldn’t kill Lecter and he needed a way to lure the Dragon out in the open. He could have waited. When Dolarhyde had set his camera and promised an end and a new beginning to the Chesapeake Ripper, he could have stood back. Waited till the Dragon was distracted, consumed by his design. Waited until Hannibal was elevated by the Dragon. It would had been so easy. Except he had met a hazelnut stare. 

  


A stare just like the one they exchanged as Mason asked him to slit Hannibal’s throat. Hannibal had both time riveted him with a half amused half challenging glare. Each time it had set a determination in Will’s mind and he couldn’t explain exactly why. Hannibal was his friend. Hannibal was half of himself. 

He was the only one who understood Hannibal, and he was understood in return.

Blue eyes had drifted away from Hannibal’s without realizing. Will’s mind was distracted. Another hand cupped his cheek, reeling attention back to the hazelnut stare.

  


-

  


Hannibal took Will’s jaw firmly, forcing him to look directly into his eyes. A few silent seconds stretched between them. The glassy eyes of the shorter man dropped down tiredly, focus sliding away. Hannibal forced it back with his free hand, leaving Will to fight to keep upright.

  


“- Where have you gone to, Will? Are you still trying to escape?”

  


Hannibal’s voice felt like a beam of light for Will’s scrambled thoughts. Reflexively, his grip got tighter on the doctor, fitting their bodies’ one against the other. His vision had tunnelled to exclude everything except the relaxed lines of Hannibal’s mouth. At the reaction, the corners lifted slightly in a satisfied expression. Caked blood from the mortal bite hadn’t entirely washed in the sea, leaving a shattered pattern on the thin lips. 

Will expulsed a deep breath, releasing in the same movement his tight hold on Hannibal. Hannibal’s hand slipped, one carefully on Will’s hip to keep him from toppling. 

  


“- I’m with you. I’m not going anywhere.” Will answered back, his voice hoarse but surprisingly steady. 

  


Hannibal took a firm hold of Will’s waist and they made their way on the neck breaking moss covered rocky beach. A natural path led them up the terrain and eventually they arrived at the same height than the house. There was only one path leading to the house from the main road. Trees obstructed the view but they were sure to find Dolarhyde car’s there. It wasn’t ideal, but they couldn’t spare the time to go inside and change. Jack and the simple minded cavalry could arrive any second. 

He forced Will to sit on a rock far away from the house, far enough to be out of the initial investigated space. 

  


“- I’ll be right back.”

  


Will acknowledged him with a nod, clenching his side. Maybe the dragon had managed to fracture a rib. 

Lecter made a circular path in the wood around the house. There was no need to leave incentive for pursuit to Jack. Not knowing if they lived might slow him down. He had proved to be an adept bloodhound in Italia, even if he had no doubts Jack tactics for finding Hannibal mainly consisted in following Will. That would prove harder to do for the FBI agent with Will on the other side of that metaphorical fence. 

  


He entered through a side door, pulling his shoes off. Bare feet, he when to the bedroom and gathered comfortable clothes in a sports bag for Will, along with a towel and a blanket. His own luggage he had already prepared before his earlier shower. Everything in hand, he brought it outside and made sure not to leave a trail of water and the house. He left without looking back.

  


Will sat in the same place he left him. He accepted the sport bag. Battled and bloodied, they huddled down the gravel path, away from a dead dragon and eroding cliffs. Together, they made their way to the abandoned car. When Jack finally arrived, they were long gone. Hannibal had plan to visit an ex-wife.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd really like some constructive criticisms or plain emotional reviews :) Please keep in mind this is not my first language and I may sometimes stumble with it. I'll try to make next chapter longer, this was still quite short and no a lot really happened. Emotional recuperation and all that bullsh*t.


	3. Wanderers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo.... A bit late, again. I really have to work on this. The story start to get a track in this chapter, you should be able to see were this is going by the end of it. Otherwise, I'll try to update again before the end of next week. As always, this is not beta proofed, so all mistakes are my own. And I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to. Please.
> 
> Otherwise I haven't developed a plan to posses Hannibal and all associated TM. Working on it though.

  


-

  


They had taken a moment to change clothes before entering Francis car. Will now wore one of Hannibal’s sweater, just a little too big for him. The sleeves kept slipping over his knuckles. The comforting warmth lulled a fog over his awareness. Hannibal was driving them in the night with a purpose Will had yet to unveil. He wasn’t so concerned yet. The interior was slowly heating up, overcoming the violent shivers he had. The nasty stinging of unfreezing extremities annoyed him, but he was too grateful of the engulfing heat to really care. 

  


Sited in the passenger seat, prickling hands carefully tucked under his armpits, Will was left with only one question.

  


_What now?_

  


He had mostly accepted that leaving Hannibal wasn’t an option anymore. Well, that wasn’t true. He could leave Hannibal like he did after Europe. Except, he’d come to realize, it was the last thing he wanted to do now. Hence it wasn’t an option. The problem was, he knew what Hannibal was. It had been the doctor’s objective from the start; for Will to see the real Hannibal, to finally have someone who understood who he was and share that liberating openness. 

  


The reality of who Hannibal was wouldn’t go away just because Will wanted to go with him. He took a moment to selfishly think of how easy it would be if the cannibal part of the problem would just go away. He berated the idea immediately. He was attracted to Hannibal because of what he was. Hannibal wouldn’t be the man Will was willing to let go everything for if he wasn’t entire. What he did was a part of what he was.

  


Maybe that was why Will forced distance with people, even before Hannibal. 

  


Will though, for a man who felt so disconnected from everyone else, it was strange that the most important thing in his life had become his relationship with Hannibal. They shared connection over their disconnection with everyone else. If that wasn’t irony, he didn’t know what was.

  


His empathy –what he did—was to take a part of himself and _uglify_ it.

  


What he called imagination. It was his own being he molded until it became the killer he was searching. That had always inspired fear and disgust in other persons. In Will first and foremost. And if Hannibal had shown anything to Will, it was that he had the ability to kill. That what he feared had a foundation in truth. Somewhere dark inside him, he had the potential to be the killers he used to search for. Back when he believed his mind to be slowly slipping away, it had been the most horrifying thought. The possibility of becoming what he hunted. 

  


The possibility slithered and weaved, twisting dread in his stomach. 

  


He had accepted it with disturbing serenity now. Killing wasn’t foreign and disgusting anymore. It was part of him.

  


In a way, Jack Crawford had always tried to deny what Will was. What he did. At one particular time, Will tried to explain it, even if he knew he wouldn’t be listened to. During the Glasgow smile case. Jack’s had never missed the truth so certainly.

  


_“What you do is take whatever evidence there is and extrapolate. You reconstruct the thinking of a killer, not think you are a killer.”_

  


Jack had been gripping the hope that Will wasn’t perched so precariously on the tread between merely imagining the murder and actually taking the face of the killer. Observing would have been so much more… _civilized_ than what he was really accomplishing. To help Jack, he had shed what let him feel righteous, he stripped from society’s morals. Allowed himself to cloak the primal darkness that justified killing as just a thing that animals do. Yet once he extirpated from it, Jack only wanted to hear answers to specific questions. -- Who was the murderer? Why did he do it? Why this victim? What weapon did he use? -- Will was left to deal with vivid imagery and the understanding of a deranged mind. It was what had led to his friendship with Hannibal, in a way. The liberty and shared interest to assess the beauty of morbid work of art and ponder on philosophical understanding. Unfortunately, he hadn’t known at first that sharing anything with the Dr Lecter had a price. A prolonged Hannibal exposure led to changes in the notions of right and wrong, good and evil. His reasoning belittled life. He induced a cold logic. He was accepting of the desire to kill for what it was; the realest form of sincerity in an imaginary world of social rules hand-crafted by illogical emotions. 

  


He found he still had to catch himself. Hannibal made his own views as sincere acceptance of his nature. Will couldn’t, even as he believe not to be a monster, reproach Hannibal his candid acceptance. Self-doubts and self-loathing was part of humanity. Fear of ourselves was what made people act rightfully. It made people decide what was to be rightful. Such bothers weren’t burdening Dr Lecter. 

  


Will wasn’t so unaffected. Fear had gnawed Will soul for a long time. He daunted the empathy that brought him closer to killers. It rendered a reflection of mind so horrifying he had to shroud from it, for the sake of sanity. He wasn’t equipped to deal with the darkness lurking in his core. 

  


Each trip inside him left him more muddied than the previous. He tried to wipe the splatters of blackness covering him. Just like the splatter of blood. But it accumulated to the point where he was just smearing darkness over his face. 

  


He’d been drowning in it. But Hannibal had fished him out of it.  
Not before dropping a bucked on his head, but it was a necessity to save him in the twisted doctor’s logic. Will almost killed him for that. Or had him killed, schematics.  
He still felt the dark veil coating his skin. It was still dripping form fresh antlers he’d tried so hard to rip away the last three years. They had taken a part of humanity from him. Acclimated him to violence, justified murder. He wished he was still afraid of becoming like Hannibal. But he wasn’t, and that scared him even more. 

  


\- 

  


The ache of his awkwardly bent neck was the first aware thought Will registered. He was then graced with the gentle promise in soft colors of a day born again. The light waved between the bared fingers of the trees. The crude darkness of dying grass was softened by the white frost crystallizing fallen leafs. It felt like discovering the nature’s cycling beauty for the first time. The best masters couldn’t replicate the encompassing majestic simplicity. You could only ever frame a fraction of a moment. 

  


Sitting up from the lowered passenger seat –he couldn’t remember moving it—he accessed their environment. He didn’t recognize the road, but that wasn’t a surprise. They obliviously hadn’t rejoined any major route. 

  


Hannibal spared a glance. Will scrutinized the older man. He was wearing another dark sweeter. It looked good on him, made him look relaxed outside those carefully chosen suits. There was a smile wrinkle at the corner of his lips and hair still laid across his forehead in a very foreign fashion from the usual meticulous attire. He was attractive. Anyone who knew Hannibal ended up attracted like metal to magnet. Confident demeanor and cultivated mind were an irresistible nectar. Charisma was his most potent weapon. One he used to holster carefully, but not now. He waved it around, projecting assurance and satisfaction, like the current situation was the result of a great accomplishment. Even with having been shot and Will stabbed twice.  
Irrationally, Will craved suddenly his embrace. 

  


“- Where are we wandering about?” 

  


Another glance and an half amused smile. 

  


“- Those who wander are usually lost. Do you presume us lost, Will?” 

  


Will pulled unconsciously at his sleeves, like the idea chilled him. 

  


“- Aren’t all fugitives trying to loose themselves?” He tried to sound ironically amused, it may have been more realist than he intended. 

  


“- It would be quite a shame to get lost before saying a proper farewell.” Stated Hannibal, eyes not leaving the road. 

  


Will tensed. He knew in the back of his mind that fleeing meant leaving the United-States, and more probably America. He knew coming back was as probable as Hannibal becoming vegetarian. Yet, he wasn’t ready for a clash with Hannibal’s reality so soon. Evidently the man wouldn’t leave so simply. 

  


“- I told Bedelia the meat was back on the menu.” It was a nudge. Not a subtle one, but Will wouldn’t be able to handle if the projected visit was intended for Alana. Or Jack. 

  


Or Molly. Oh god, Molly. 

  


“- Would you like to go see your wife?” 

  


He must had said those last words out loud. He knew it wasn’t said as a menace. He also knew what the intent behind a visit would be. 

  


What he didn’t know was how he felt about Molly. He loved her. Their marriage had been born of sincere feelings and intentions. Mainly the intention of moving on. Leaving Hannibal and killers behind. 

  


He felt empty and jaded. He wouldn’t see Molly ever again. It hurt. The realization petrified him with emotion, unable to draw breath, like air had disappeared around him. His throat was lumpy and he wished he could weep. Wished it hurt physically because the feelings didn’t seem enough to express how desperate that made him. He would never see Molly’s face again. His wife. Her son. 

  


He took a deep breath and held it, clasping a hand over his mouth. When he let it go, he was left with emptiness. 

  


A long moment passed in silence. 

  


“- The man she married died, jumping off into that abyss.” He whispered it, like a secret. The _she’s not my wife anymore_ was left unsaid. It didn’t hurt less to say. 

  


“- She didn’t marry a man. She married a wishful image, a teacup of porcelain. One you tried so diligently to put back together after you left me. Yet it shattered again. Do you still want to hide behind shattered porcelain Will?” 

  


The words where harsh. Said in typical Hannibal fashion of apparent neutrality. Except Hannibal never felt neutral about anything. Will refused to answer and closed his eyes. 

  


Once, Hannibal had worked to sever all ties Will had outside of their relationship. It had worked terribly well. Will had to wander in loneliness and the darkness of his mind, the man who put him there for lone companionship. It wasn’t like he had had a great number of friendships in his life before, but enough to satisfy the longing for social connections afflicting introverts. Now Will was voluntarily sacrificing the most meaningful relation of his life for Hannibal. 

  


True to the unhealthy destructive relationship they had, they satisfied themselves of each other. 

  


He wondered if he’d be able to consume Hannibal before he was entirely eaten himself. 

  


He was with Hannibal. That should be answer enough. 

  


-

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your support! Commentaries are my life and kudos my bubbles of joy. Let me know what you think! The next chapter will probably be more advancing the story and less psychology and feels. Then again, I said that last chapter too :P  
> Have a nice week everyone!


End file.
